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"Your trainer told the Second not to invite you to hunt tonight." She looked at Blade and cocked her head, braids falling over the barrel of the plasma weapon quiescent on one shoulder. "He said you needed time to come to terms with things." She laughed. They were on a rooftop not too far from her apartment, having left Marisa behind not so long ago. The instruction explained why they hadn't been moving that fast to get anywhere.
"What I need right now is to forget everything and just hunt", she said, perfectly serious. Blade looked at her. "No, I'm not going crazy or anything. I need to find out if he was right about me. I need to let go." She hesitated. "I just don't know how." A few minutes passed.
"You aren't ready to hunt yet, young blood", he noted clinically. She growled an inquiry at him. "I changed your armor, you need to test it." He had spent most of last night and all of the day working on her armor as she had requested, adjusting the fit to remove the chafing parts, designed to fit her long ago, as well as modifying the electronics and some of the weapons.
Some of the changes she had asked him to make would have seemed strange to him before, but having tested her and watched her techniques over the past few nights, he better understood how some of them might be used. She had certainly taken the idea of taking things and making them her own to heart, and he knew anyone who assumed that she was wearing the normal armor of a Yautja was likely to get a big, if unpleasant, surprise.
"OK, and how do we do that?", she asked, impishly. He stood, and as she followed suit, he motioned over to the edge of the building, a large gap between it and the next one.
"Meet me over there", he said, and without further warning sprinted towards the gap. Just before reaching it, he jumped into the air, and came down on the other side easily. He turned to look at her.
She looked at the gap and swallowed heavily, it was easily fifteen feet wide. With a mental shrug, she started, watching the edge and gaging her pace, until she reached it and jumped off as hard as she could. She landed heavily just on the other side, losing her balance, but she tucked into a ball and rolled, coming up to her feet after a complete turn. Blade walked over to her and checked her armor, tugging on it in places, and making sure all of the equipment attached at various points was still secure.
"Follow" was all he said before he turned and started jogging across the rooftop, and she shook her head as she tried to catch up. For the next hour, he led her along rooftops, down at street level, through parks, over fences, under drainage ditches ... every possible terrain short of desert or ocean, and by the time he slowed down she was sure that if there had been any of those nearby, he'd have taken her through those as well.
They had tried out the new markings pattern on her armor - it had been designed not only for decoration but also as a form of camouflage, breaking up her outline, making her harder to see in the dark and gloom if her cloak was off. He had warned her that if anyone saw her, she would have to kill them, reminding her of when her cloak had been destroyed by the kainde amedha, but this time was different. She would be the one that would be expected to kill any poor soul that spotted her. She was grateful that no-one did, even when she had been within feet of some of them, hidden in shadows. She wasn't sure how she would handle it, not yet.
They had tested the new electronics in her computer and her mask, and the tracking system for her plasma weapon. He had wanted to take the translator apart to see if he could replicate it, or at least improve on its vocabulary, but she had declined. It wasn't even Yautja technology, and although he meant well, she didn't want to risk damaging it in trying to improve on it.
-
They were taking a break, set back in the darkness underneath a bridge over a river, and as had become common between them were comparing notes on different fighting methods, when she heard a voice that tickled her memory coming closer. Both of them activated their cloaks and watched as a group of men came into view, one of them carrying something over his shoulder. She started as she realized that it was a human female the man was carrying, either unconscious or dead. As the group came up level with them under the bridge, they halted, the man depositing his burden on the path without ceremony.
She looked at that one and sudden recognition came to her, remembering where she had heard the voice, seen him before – he was one of the two thugs beating someone up several nights ago, one of the ones the Elder had stopped her from hunting. As the man and the four with him started to unbuckle their belts and unzip their flies, she realized just what they had in mind for their victim. She also knew that the chances were that they had selected under the bridge both for its proximity to the river as well concealment.
She didn't even consider consulting Blade, instead began to move to one side of the bridge overhang, then made her way down a slight embankment until she reached the path. She could see the cloaked figure of Blade follow suit, wordlessly, on the other side. She walked calmly towards the group, their laughter and raucous banter between each other sounding very far away, but hardening her intentions.
As she came up on the first, she clenched her fist, and the soft metallic click of her wristblades extending and locking into position was carried through the night air, followed by the wet thump as she punched through her target's back. He gasped, almost inaudibly, his back arching from the sudden sharp pain. She turned her hand then pulled her arm across, the blades tearing through the man's body to emerge from his side in a spray of warmth in the vision mode of her mask.
As the blood spatters splashed against them, they turned to see their comrade fall to the ground in a bloody heap, and gasped at the sight as she turned off her cloak, gray and black death wavering into view standing there with blood dripping from the silvered blades on her forearm. The distraction cost two more of them their lives as Blade came up from behind, turning his own cloak off as he did. He casually backhanded one, his alien strength sending the man crashing into a concrete support pillar to come to a halt slumped, his neck broken. In the same move, he extended his wrist blades and the arc of his arm send them into the neck of his second target, cutting through with ease and severing his head from his body.
She motioned slightly towards the one she had recognized, placing her claim on him. The weaponsmaster growled, the eerie sound freezing the two men, but simply an acknowledgment to her of her claim. As he moved towards the other man, she looked to her prey, watching as he raised his hands as if to ward her off, the man completely forgetting how much the move exposed himself. With a sense of poetic justice she stepped forward, and with a sweep of her arm, that particular problem was solved for him. As he looked down and opened his mouth to scream, she took another step, driving her wristblades deep into his stomach.
He looked into the night black eyeshields of her mask, pain etched on his face, disbelief and lack of understanding there, as she drew her arm up, the jagged backs of her blades cutting their way up. She barely felt the resistance of his sternum as the blades made contact, parting the bone with ease, until they reached his heart, trisecting it. He shuddered and started to fall, but she reached her other arm around him and held him up, switching her vision mode to visible light and looking into his eyes until the life faded from them, before dropping him finally to the ground. She turned and saw the last man being lifted from the ground, Blade's hand around his neck, and heard the crack as the weaponsmaster broke the man's neck.
It was only when the body hit the ground, thrown there by the weaponsmaster in disgust, that she realized what they had done. She examined her feelings, analyzing them, trying to find remorse, but one look at the state of the woman these men had been about to rape and probably murder meant she found none. She looked at Blade, then hesitantly, in question, pressed against the side of her armor, allowing a thin tail of the strong cord to come out. He looked back at her, then wordlessly nodded, and they set about finishing their hunt.
It took her only seconds to remember the knot that had been used to create the cords she'd carried the kainde amedha head with, and to tie a length of the cord around the ankles of each of her kills. She threw the loose end of each rope over the steel support beams high above, but needed Blade's strength to hoist the bodies up. She expected him to hoist them up high, but he stopped, one rope in each hand, as their heads came level with her own. She looked at him, but he remained motionless, observing her. Waiting. She looked at the two bodies, then bent forwards, pulling one of the long knives from it's mounting point against her calf. She straightened up again and closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, she didn't hesitate, grasping the hair of the first prey before sweeping the blade in a short arc, then stepping back to avoid the blood that fell out of the body like a waterfall, the severed head in her hand. She placed it on the ground beside the still unconscious female, and repeated the process with the second man she had killed. Blade pulled on the ropes then, lifting the bodies high, as she went back to the woman, scanning her quickly for injuries. Any qualms she might have had about what they, what she had just done, vanished as she cataloged the bruises and broken bones, all fresh.
Blade came over, finished securing the ends of the ropes, and handed her a pair of small hooks. She stared at them not understanding, until he gestured to the three heads that were hanging over his own hip, and she nodded before taking each hook and running it through the mouth and under the chin of the two heads she had taken. She clipped the hooks to the side of her armor, and a part of her dimly took note that she was a lot smaller than Yautja, she couldn't hang as many skulls as they could. She looked up at the five bodies, their pendulum swing from being hoisted up already slowing to a halt, then back at the woman.
Blade recognize her concern, and gently lifted the woman in his arms, and the two of them made their way down the path a few hundred yards until they were in sight of a road, where they placed the woman before retreating, cloaking as they did so. She could feel the two skulls at her hip bouncing as they sped up, heading away from the area before the woman or the bodies were discovered. After a few minutes. Blade slowed the pace down again, as they reached a built up area and they could return to the rooftops, and eventually he called a halt to their march. She sank to her knees on the ground, breathing heavily, then quickly disconnected her mask from her armor, just managing to pull it clear from her face before she doubled over, retching violently onto the tar-paper roof.
-
"You need to clean those then we move again," he noted once she sat back, pointing to the heads hanging at her waist. "otherwise they will leave traces behind that can be used to track us." She looked at him, and saw that he had used the time while she was busy throwing up to clean two of the three he had taken and was about to begin on the third. She nodded slowly, unhooking the heads from her armor and placing them on the ground while she withdrew one of the long blades from her calf armor again.
As they both worked on cleaning the flesh from their trophies, he watched her. She seemed distant, lost in thought.
"What were you thinking of?", he asked after a while. She shrugged.
"I wasn't thinking of anything. I was just reacting." He nodded. As she finished blasting the remnants of tissue from the first skull with the enzyme spray, she looked it over, then at him.
"It didn't feel the same as taking the kainde amedha." He nodded.
"They had declared themselves prey, by hunting the human female. You proved who was the better hunter. Your trophies are earned." She nodded slowly, placing the skull to one side and working on the other. He finished his third one, and came across, crouching beside her.
"I thought I'd feel something, but I didn't."
"Good." She looked at him sharply. "We do not hate or fear our prey, young blood. To hunt from emotions increases the risk of failure" he explained.
"But I took human lives." He nodded, picking up the first skull she had cleaned and turning it over in his hands.
"You have done so before."
"That wasn't the same, those were always human bad bloods." He cocked his head at her.
"Just because these ones were outside those places where bad bloods nest changes it how?" She stopped what she was doing and stared into space, she had no answer for that.
He reached across and placed a claw on her shoulder gently.
"They do not have to be bad bloods to be prey, young blood. Is there really any difference between them?" She thought about it for several long minutes, turning his words over in her mind, trying to find those differences, but she couldn't. She shook her head and returned to cleaning the skull she held, and he took his claw from her shoulder, replacing the first skull in front of her and waiting patiently as she completed cleaning the second.
When she was done, he showed her how to hook through the skulls and hang them properly on her armor, facing outwards. She crouched there numbly as he did so, and almost mechanically rose with him as they set off again. She didn't notice, or care, the direction they were heading in, her mind was filled with trying to process the night's events, and her feelings.
He was concerned for her at her silence. He understood on some levels where she was conflicted, but he couldn't figure out how to explain things to her, to help her understand. She had done well, and he had been surprised and pleased when she had suggested hanging the bodies – he had seen it as a sign that she was finally beginning to understand the hunt. But watching her now, he knew she was still shying away from her nature.
He realized that he was leading her towards the borders of the industrial and business zones again, her hunting grounds. He briefly considered the Elder's instruction that she not be invited to hunt kainde amedha tonight, but considering her reactions to having killed the two humans, he was beginning to think that she would have an easier time coming to terms with herself if she was given the opportunity to hunt familiar prey in familiar territory. It would give her the opportunity to 'let go', as the human female had called it, without the moral qualms she seemed to be suffering from at the moment coming into play.
He called a halt to their travel when the reached what he thought was the edge of her hunting grounds. He sat down against a stone parapet on the rooftop, and as she joined him he reached around behind her to disconnect a small container attached above her medical kit, bringing it around and handing it to her.
"Eat, rest for a few minutes." She nodded, and disconnected her mask then lifted it clear from her face in a hiss of escaping pressure, before opening one end of the container and withdrawing its contents.
"I am going to kill her" she said suddenly, startling him. He looked down at what she held, but despite his scanning it, he couldn't determine what it was. She answered the question for him, holding the article up in front of his eyeshields.
"She made me a packed lunch. With tomatoes. She knows I hate tomatoes!" She started to laugh, wryly, but he considered that a good sign that she was dealing with her emotions of earlier. He gestured to her mask, and she pressed it against her face so she could understand him.
"Next kainde amedha you kill, you could always take a piece back to her as a snack." She stared at him them laughed loudly, as he disconnected his own mask and reached for his own meal container. He stared at the orange wafer-like contents with distaste, and she looked over. She held her own as-yet untouched meal up and cocked her head.
"Swap?" He thought for a moment. Hunter's rations were bland by Yautja standards, but shouldn't be toxic for humans, and Yautja physiology gave them a remarkable ability to 'live off the land' on many of the planets they hunted on. He nodded, and they exchanged their food.
Both of them took a bite, and both spat it out at the same time. They looked at each other and wordlessly agreed to skip the whole idea, packing the meal containers up and reattaching them to their respective armor. They sat there for a few more minutes in silence, until he decided they had rested long enough, and gestured to her to replace her mask as he stood.
"Where would we find human bad bloods?" he asked her suddenly. She looked at him, then over the edge of the parapet to the street below. Mentally, she tried to figure out where they were, but hadn't paid enough attention – she was lost. He saw her confusion, and pointed to the computer on her thigh. She slapper herself mentally for forgetting, and crouched down before bringing the computer online and displaying the holographic map of the area. Once she had located their position, she was able to quickly orient herself, and she pointed off into the distance, deeper into the industrial area.
"There should be a small one a couple of miles over there, assuming it hasn't been hit by copycats or kainde amedha. Why?" she asked, bluntly.
"You haven't hunted them using your armor." Her mind flashed back to what her trainer had said, that she only wore the armor now because the Elder had required it of her, to hunt kainde amedha, that she wouldn't hunt humans in it.
"So what was earlier?", she asked herself. She knew why she was avoiding it – she had seen how much easier the armor made hunting pyode amedha, the soft meat. She had seen Yautja exult at the end of a hunt in their armor. She was afraid that if she hunted in the armor, if it was easy, she'd lose herself and just kill. But that was before she understood why they screamed their victory, felt the energy and emotion. Absently, she stroked the eye ridge of one of the human skulls dangling at her hip, not even realizing it.
She didn't want to kill indiscriminately. She wanted to hunt things that were a challenge, something worthwhile screaming victory over.
That was what he wanted her to be. Prey that was a challenge.
Something clicked in her head, everything finally coming into alignment. She shook herself and looked at Blade.
"Sounds like now would be the perfect time to rectify that, don't you think?"
-
-
The red and blue strobes flashed across the white bandage in syncopated harmony as she pressed past the medics and firefighters clustered around the crime scene tape, but her advance was foiled by the young eager looking cop standing guard at the top of the path. He held out his arm to block her, and she stopped for a second, surprised. She flashed her press badge at him and made as if to continue on, but he moved across to stand in front of her.
"I'm sorry, Miss, I can't let you go down there." She glared at him, while her cameraman tried to maneuver his way through the same crowd to reach her.
"Do you know who I am?", she demanded in her most intimidating tone. He smiled urbanely at her, nodding.
"Yes Miss, but I still can't let you go down there." She was about to let loose with a blistering routine of curses when she noticed a familiar face coming up the path. She waited until the man, in a cop sergeant's uniform, reached them and smiled at him. The look in his eyes made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and as he motioned her over to one side she wondered what he had seen. She could taste an acrid smell in the back of her throat, and she was disgusted and repulsed when she realized that it was the smell of vomit coming from the cop himself.
"What the hell happened that's got you so messed up?", she asked undiplomatically. He just looked at her, then shook his head. "Was it the same woman that's been hitting the drug dens?"
"Not unless she's decided to start stealing heads instead of teeth." She blinked.
"Teeth?", she wondered. He must have been really rattled if he was talking about telltales, the information the police didn't release about crimes to try to weed out the crazies. "What do you mean?"
"There's five bodies under the bridge ... whoever did it took their heads, carved up on some of them. Looks like they were planning on raping some poor sod and dumping her afterwards. She's on her way to ER, she's pretty banged up but she'll live." He looked off into the distance and started to shake. "They were hung up by their ankles under there, then the heads taken off. The blood ... " His voice tailed off. She was trying to scribble this down and he looked at her bandaged hand.
"What happened to you anyways?" She looked at him, then at her hand.
"Bad accident with a car door, I lost the tip of my pinky finger in it. It'll heal." The cop nodded, but the cameraman behind her just shook his head sorrowfully.
"Wait, what did you mean by 'the same woman that's been hitting' ..." She smiled at him, cursing her slip. She thought quickly, and an idea came to her.
"I'd heard from a junkie that had been outside one of the places that got hit that a woman in black, her hair in dreads or something, ran from it right after the murders. I figured I'd see if you knew anything. So you're confirming the junkie's report?" The cop snorted.
"I don't know squat about no woman in black. This junkie got a name?" She shook her head.
"You know I can't reveal sources." He snorted again.
"Fine, if you're not going to talk to me, there's no reason I got to talk to you", he snarled as he stomped off back under the tape. She smiled to herself, she'd gotten a telltale about the mob murders, and planted a seed in the minds of the police about the bitch. This might not be a wasted trip after all. She turned, ignoring her cameraman's disapproving look, and headed back to the van. She needed to think what she was going to say in her report later.
